The present disclosure relates to an approach for improving speed of responding to read commands in an on-chip, non-volatile memory, such as Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory (EEPROM), or Flash memory, having added security functions. Aspects include an on-chip, non-volatile memory having a front-end buffer for a slave memory. Aspects include an on-chip, non-volatile memory that is capable of performing read commands faster than directly from internal memory and in a manner that is comparable to random-access memory. Aspects include an on-chip, non-volatile memory that is a drop-in replacement for a standard EEPROM/Flash memory in which the master chip is unaware of the added mode.